First Aid Corps

Open house at Northwest Elementary School had all but ended.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

A couple of parents milled about in the hallways. Teachers were shutting down their classrooms. And Rhonda Smith, who came to the school that September evening to recruit Cub Scouts to her troop, was packing up materials.

Then Smith collapsed.

Two friends — J.R. and Tracy Hatfield — realized Smith, a 47-year-old mother of three, had experienced a heart attack. They began CPR and called the school’s staff into action.

“We did what my registered nurse trained us to do,” principal Tracy Graziaplene recalled.

They grabbed the school’s automatic external defibrillator, made sure someone had contacted 911, and got to work.

“That wonderful machine started talking to us,” Graziaplene said, referring to the AED’s robotic instructions. “It has everything there.”

Northwest was the first elementary school in Pasco County to get a defibrillator, about a year earlier. Last fall it became the first Pasco school to record a “save” using one.

“People were on campus ready to respond,” district nursing supervisor Lisa Kern said. “It was a wonderful thing.”

After four months of recovery, Smith visited the School Board on Tuesday to offer her thanks.

“Without that machine in the school, I wouldn’t have even been alive to get into the ambulance,” Smith, who “coded” at least seven times on the way to the hospital, said after the meeting. “I’m grateful for the taxpayers paying their taxes … to keep (the defibrillators) up to do the job. I’m so grateful for everyone.”

Smith, who now has an internal defibrillator, says the district expense is worth it if it saves another life.

“You’ve got to think of the budget cuts. I deal with budget cuts with my own kids,” she said. “I know there’s people out there who don’t feel the AED’s are necessary. … But what is a life worth? It’s like love, it’s unconditional.”

Given a new lease on her life, Smith said she intends to pay it forward. By no means a wealthy woman, she plans to do so with her time and energy, working with people who have handicaps.

“I think that’s why God put me here on this earth,” she said, listing among her projects the creation of a “special needs” Girl Scout troop.

Smith also works as a personal care assistant and supports her 13-year-old daughter, Katelynn, who’s a special needs cheerleader and Special Olympics athlete. She has been spending more time with her husband, Dwight, and their sons Alvin and Matthew.

And she has a new, less stressful outlook on the world.

“I’m closer to God. I’m closer to my children. I’m closer to my husband. I’m closer to the beauty of life,” Smith said. “I’m just happy to be alive.”

A few short months ago, the odds were heavily stacked against her survival and her chances of resuming a normal life; but as KDKA-TV News Anchor Susan Koeppen returns to work at the anchor desk for the first time since November, she’s sharing her story in the hopes that it may inspire more people to learn what to do to save a life.

After 7 years reporting for CBS News in New York, Susan came home to Pittsburgh and joined KDKA-TV last fall.

Susan Koeppen the Survivor

Life was kind of chaotic, but in a good way. She was busy with work, busy with her husband Jim; and especially with their three little kids. On top of all that, Susan had begun training for a half-marathon. She’d just run a 5K in October; and on November 20th, she hooked up with her friends and fellow runners, Gabey Gosman and Beth Sutton. “Hey let’s go out for a couple of miles, do a couple miles on a Sunday morning,” Susan recounts. “Go home, go on with our day.”

It seemed like a good plan — at least until the women were on the home stretch on Negley Avenue in Shadyside. Beth had just asked Susan if she was OK, having noticed that she didn’t look good. “She said ‘ No, no. Old girl’s gonna power through.’ I said alright so we kept running.”

In fact, Beth says Susan surged ahead of her friends; but then, stopped. “[She] put her hands on her knees and kind of bent over like she was trying to catch her breath, then she put her right hand back and kind of sat herself back down on the ground and lay down. And knowing Susan, she’s kinda funny anyways, so I… ran upon her and said , ‘Susan, that was quite a burst of energy you had there,’ and she was gasping for air just like she was winded and out of breath. And I bent over her and I looked down. I said, ‘Do you need some water?’ and she didn’t respond. She was still gasping for air, so I put my arm underneath her back and I lifted her up cause I had a water bottle on my arm and I said – I looked at her again, I said, ‘Oh my gosh, Gabey, there’s something wrong,’ and at that point her eyes rolled in the back of her head and I laid her down and she started to convulse.”

Gabey happens to be a physician — a fertility specialist. As a doctor, she knew this was a serious situation; but it was still hard for her to comprehend. “I think there’s an element of denial because it’s a friend who’s young and healthy, and there’s like a bunch of ‘this is not happening.’”

But it quickly became clear that it was a life or death emergency and they needed help. They flagged down Vanessa Franco and Ranmal Samarasinghe, who pulled over to find Susan in cardiac arrest and turning blue.

As third year medical students, they’d done CPR plenty of times — on mannequins; but never on a human being. “I was taking her pulse and watching her breathe while [Vanessa] was doing the compressions,” Ranmal explained. “And I was just trying so hard,” Vanessa added, “and I kept yelling her name ‘cause someone told me her name was Susan, so I just kept yelling, ‘Come on, come on Susan!’… I was terrified of losing her and I mean, I mean, I don’t know — I just went into automatic mode and just like did everything I could.”

Responding to a neighbor’s 911 call, Lt. Dan Elias’ crew from the city’s Engine 8 arrived. “We jumped out of the rig and pretty much, there wasn’t a word spoken, really.”

Elias took over the compressions, while William Gorham and John Mares hooked up an automatic external defibrillator. They shocked Susan’s heart, right there on the sidewalk; but even after, to Vanessa, it didn’t look good. Maybe she remembered learning that nine out of ten people who suffer cardiac arrest outside a hospital don’t make it.

“I’ve seen people get shocked and suddenly come, you know, have a lot more life to them — and she wasn’t,” Vanessa explained, “and I was like, I was just deathly afraid for her.”

Everyone there was afraid; except for Susan. “It didn’t really happen to me; it did, but it didn’t,” Susan recalled. “I feel sorry for these guys and for my husband. They were with me, she was cradling me in her arms as I was dying — that’s something she’s never gonna forget and she’s not gonna get that out of her mind; and my husband ran to the scene and saw me on the ground. He’s never gonna forget that. They can’t get it out of their minds, but for me it was just black.”

Because she didn’t come to, the immediate fear as she arrived at Shadyside Hospital was brain damage. No one had to explain that to Susan’s husband, Jim O’Toole — himself an M.D. He estimated that Susan’s heart had stopped or been short-circuiting for about six minutes. “The terrifying thing — aside from the whole experience — is when you get outside of five minutes, the potential for severe brain injury goes up significantly ,” Jim added, “and if you get beyond 7 minutes, meaningful recovery is not expected.”

Doctors then began chilling her body — a protective therapy that greatly reduced her need for oxygen.

Her fate would be a mystery for at least 24 hours. “That whole time frame, I have no idea what’s gonna be at the end of it,” added Jim. “I don’t know what her brain function’s going to be — is it going to be Susan or some, some awfully intangible version of her that’s not the woman I married — and that was as tough as anything.”

His thoughts turned to their three children. “I had to legitimately decide or think about whether or not I was capable of being a single father of three, the oldest of which was 6, and having that be a legitimate thought and having to concretely think about that and then think about what the next step would be is not an easy thing to think about.”

As Susan emerged from the therapeutic hypothermia, she gradually became more responsive. Jim was there when her respirator was removed and she spoke for the first time.

She didn’t know she was in the hospital or what had happened to put her there.

“The only word that really explains it is desperation,” Jim said. “I went from that to being the happiest man on the planet, because I realized we had just been lucky enough to survive through something we had no business surviving through.”

“We talk about it a lot, which is actually — is therapeutic, you know.” Susan said — choking up a little. “You know, I have not gotten emotional at all about it, but sitting here with these guys and knowing that, you now, we just went for a run that day. We’re just three moms chugging along and you know, I went down for the count. How does that happen? Wow. But I’m here. Obviously, it wasn’t my time.”

This was not a typical heart attack due to blocked arteries or an unhealthy lifestyle. Doctors blamed it on a heart abnormality Susan knew about. She now has a new little “appliance” in her chest and she’s facing heart surgery to repair a faulty cardiac valve.

An Arizona man leaves Dallas in good health thanks to the quick actions of a friend, an automated external defibrillator and fast-acting firefighters.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

Roy Tousley collapsed at Galleria Dallas on Oct. 27. In a matter of minutes, his friend had started CPR.

A doctor walking by intervened next and began compressions.

Mall security then arrived and gave him two shocks with an AED, but Tousley was still in danger.

Dallas Fire-Rescue Engine 20 was first on the scene and took over, continuing CPR and using the defibrillator. By the time firefighters got Tousley to Medical City Dallas he was breathing on his own and stable.

“This is an awesome outcome, we’re very happy to see it. We don’t get to see it enough,” said Jay Prigmore the driver, engineer and paramedic for Engine 20.

Tousley and his wife stopped by the fire house on Wednesday to say thank you to rescuers.

“I came to the fire station to give my very best to these gentlemen that saved my life,” said Tousley.

“We need to get defibrillators in every public place that we can,” said Myrna Tousley. “We need everybody to take a CPR course, that’s crucial.”

William Kendhammer was sipping a cold beer Saturday at the Maple Leaf Parade, chatting with a friend. The next thing he remembers, he was staring up at emergency personnel as they fought to save his life.

“He was essentially dead,” said Dr. Kristof Gehrke, a physician in Mayo Clinic Health System’s intensive care unit.

Kendhammer, a 34-year-old father of two, had gone into sudden cardiac arrest.

Luckily, a pair of Tri-State Ambulance bicycle paramedics had an automated external defibrillator. It’s what saved his life, Gehrke said.

Kendhammer and his wife, Kathy, 32, were at the corner of State and Second streets with about two dozen friends for their annual parade tradition of grilling out and drinking beer. Mid-conversation, his wife saw Kendhammer fall backward into the crowd.

“I tried smacking him in the face and told him to wake up,” she said.

Kendhammer’s cousin called 911, and a friend started CPR. Two paramedics on bicycles arrived about a minute later, along with the La Crosse Fire Department. The AED brought Kendhammer back, said Tri-State Ambulance Supervisor Nick Eastman. He arrived at the hospital 10 minutes later, alert and talking.

Each squad car at the La Crosse city police and county sheriff’s departments has an AED, as well as each emergency vehicle at the La Crosse Fire Department. Tri-State carries similar machines in each ambulance, and both bike teams have an AED.

It’s critical in saving lives, Eastman said. Without early CPR or an AED, survival chances go down 10 percent every minute.

Kendhammer never expected he’d suffer a cardiac arrest. Looking back, he had some signs, like chest pains in the weeks beforehand. He thought nothing of it.

“You don’t expect this at 30-something,” he said. “You figure you don’t have to worry until your 50s or 60s. It was an eye-opener.”

On Tuesday morning, the La Crosse resident had a small defibrillator placed next to his heart. It’ll kick in if he has another cardiac arrest.

He says he’s learned to appreciate what he has. “You’re not going to be here forever.”

Still, he’s trying to add a little humor to the situation with next year’s Oktoberfest shirts for his group of friends. Kendhammer get’s to pick out what they say.

Perhaps “Shocktoberfest” or “A heart-stopping good time.”

“We’ll come up with something good,” he said.

Christopher P. Prezioso, an avid golfer who works as supervising judicial marshal in Waterbury Superior Court, saved Hunt’s life the day after winning the men’s championship tournament Saturday afternoon at Watertown Golf Club’s pro shop.

View First Aid Corps World Map of AED Locations in a larger map

“Not only was he the winner, but the hero for the weekend,” said Ian Marshall, head golf professional at the course.

Prezioso said he walked into the shop at about 7 a.m. and greeted Hunt, who was talking to an employee at the counter. While Prezioso was turned away, he heard a noise like something sliding down a wall and turned back to see Hunt face down on the floor.

Yelling for the pro shop staff to call 911, Prezioso rolled Hunt over, noticing his struggle to breathe and his faint pulse.

“Then he just kind of locked up and stopped everything,” Prezioso said.

Prezioso began chest compressions, while staffers and golfers helped cut Hunt’s shirt away and cleared the area for police and ambulance crews. Marshall readied a defibrillator he pulled off the wall about five feet from where Hunt fell.

In between compressions, Prezioso followed the defibrillator’s instructions, shocking Hunt twice before his pulse returned.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Hunt was breathing on his own. He was treated at Waterbury Hospital.

Prezioso, 34, who lives in Southbury, is good friends with Hunt’s son and often plays golf with the Hunts, he said. Judicial marshals are trained annually in first aid, CPR and defibrillation, and Prezioso has served for 16 years, making the experience of saving a life seem routine while it was happening, Prezioso said.

“I actually stayed very calm,” Prezioso said. “It was exactly like how the training videos are.”

Only after they loaded Hunt into the ambulance did the weight of the event kick in, Prezioso said.

“I’m not an emotional person, I never am, and I cried that whole day,” Prezioso said.

Prezioso has already received one award for helping to save a man in 2008 who had a seizure in the courthouse lobby. His latest act of heroism is not surprising, said Anthony Candido, the chief judicial marshal at the courthouse.

“Chris is the kind of person, whether it’s good or bad, you can depend on,” Candido said.

Hunt, 67, lives in the borough with his wife, Diane, and retired last year after 44 years on the borough police force. Two of his sons, Ronald and Steven, live in the borough and work for the same department as sergeant and lieutenant, respectively.

His oldest son, 46-year-old Thomas Hunt Jr., was on his way from his Waterbury home to meet his father for golf Sunday when he got a call about the heart attack.

“The doctor said if it wasn’t for him being in that place, at that time, with people who knew what to do and do immediately, he probably wouldn’t be where he is now,” said Thomas Hunt Jr., who is a counselor supervisor at Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown. “We’re truly blessed.”